By Jill Krueger Wagner
Everyone who knows me knows that I love the Bible. Yet loving it and always understanding it are two different things. I find great joy in digging in it to find answers to what God is like and what he requires of me. Yet there are things that really disturb me in The Word. One of those things has just been cleared up for me.
My question was why would God refuse to let Moses go into the Promised Land after all he had done to lead the people of Israel to that sacred land? Just because God said, “go to Pharaoh” Moses went (after strenuous objection on his part!) – and he could have been killed for it. Moses was, for the most part, an obedient servant to God so it seemed wrong to me to not let him into the land to see the fruit of his labor. But now I see; now I think I understand why.
Moses’ offense, found in Numbers 20:6-12, was, I believe three-fold. God told him to speak to the rock and God would bring water from it. Instead Moses struck the rock – that was one offense. The weightier offenses were that he didn’t give honor to God but claimed glory for himself when he said “must we bring water from this rock?” “We?” There was no “we” in this miracle – it was all God. He also didn’t trust God enough to just speak and felt he must strike the rock.
God had just told Moses in Numbers 14:18 that he was a forgiving God so why didn’t he forgive Moses? Moses and God had an awesome relationship. God spoke to Moses as a man speaks to a friend. They were very close. Finally I understand that God did forgive Moses but there was another element at work in this issue. The element was justice.
Being forgiven does not negate the need for a just discipline for the sin. And this is the answer I discovered this week while studying the book, “The Art of Forgiveness” by Lewis Smedes: Forgiveness is for the individual but justice is for the community.
What would the Israelite community have thought if God offered no consequences for Moses’ sin? To them it might have seemed like he was saying, “Moses you broke my law but it’s no big deal.” But it was a big deal, whenever we break God’s law it’s a big deal.
As James Dobson once said, “God’s laws are like guardrails on the side of the road – they protect us.” We, being basically self-centered individuals, don’t want anyone, even God, telling us what to do (or not to do). We want to forge our own way and we don’t want anyone telling us it’s wrong. If we were to develop a god he would be always forgiving and never judging our sin but that is not what the God of the Bible is like.
